


How A Poet May Love An Artist (How An Ocean May Love Its Waves)

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, R Ship Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words flow inside him like the tide, but he can't say them. Not yet, not yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How A Poet May Love An Artist (How An Ocean May Love Its Waves)

**Author's Note:**

> For Grantaire Ship Week. From a prompt by combefemme.  
> All shabby poetry is my own.

Jehan aches. There are words caught in his throat, in his fingers, and he can't let them go, and he aches. Instead, he grabs Bahorel's arm where it rests across the back of his seat and writes other words on the dark skin, words of confidence and strength, words of laughter and joyous chaos. It's only a distraction from the words itching beneath his skin. They've been there for days, for weeks, probably months, but he's got them trapped inside and he's not allowed to let them go. Not yet, not yet.

Grantaire is doing the dishes in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt with a tear at the collar, and Grantaire is beautiful. His hair is wild, black waves thrashing against the storm that is his mind, his bare feet tapping to beat of some unheard song, and his lower lip is caught between his teeth in thought. Jehan watches him, leaning against the doorway, wondering what it would take to capture this moment and hide it away in a box, sealing away the sound of fabric brushing soft against skin, the way the light is that strange evening mix of blue and gold through the window, the way Grantaire's face is calm, his movements quiet, his breathing steady, his eyes that sharp shade of blue that exposes the mind behind them, finally softened. Jehan steps into the kitchen in socked feet and makes a little poem with the word magnets on the refrigerator.

_give me your blue smile_   
_your warm cold sea_   
_your ocean_   
_i will give you_   
_the glitter ing above_   
_the ride ing ship_   
_show the whisper scream_   
_of your happiness_   
_behind the storm_

Grantaire's body is warm as Jehan wraps his arms around the other man's waist and drops a kiss against his jaw. Grantaire puts the last of the dishes away and dries his hands on a tea towel before turning to kiss Jehan, gentle compared to the crashing waves of his body and brain. Jehan runs his fingers through those waves, brushing them along Grantaire's arms, against his neck, through his hair. The sound of the sea rushes between their lips as they kiss. Words come in like the tide under his skin and he pushes them back.

It's not that he can't say it. It's that he won't. He won't because Grantaire can't hear it. Because Grantaire will kiss him, will paint him with reverence, will hold him, will compliment him and call him a beautiful vision, will sleep wrapped around him like a vice, will look at him with tired, sad eyes and still reach for him, but he flinches each time Jehan says something that might be close to the truth, turns away and hides his face and hunches his shoulders and can't make himself believe it's true. It makes Jehan sad, but he can see the pain that lances through Grantaire when he hears anything with those underlying words, how his every cell and fiber believes it to be a lie and deceit. So he doesn't say it, because it hurts more to see Grantaire painfully unable to accept what he honestly deserves than it does to not be able to say it. So he doesn't say it. He doesn't even write it, not to him. He hides it in kisses and gifts and touches, in post-it notes and whiteboard messages.

On the whiteboard, some mornings or evenings or even middle of the day after Grantaire has awakened from a nap:

_The sun rose with us today, your mind will rise too, my dear._

_You have nothing to fear; your horrible dreams will run from me._

_Your laughter_   
_Holds the day shining through cotton curtains_   
_To warm our bed_   
_Sunlight rubbing at our skin_   
_Kissing us a promise of every next day_

_You are a house on fire and I am the tree to save you from the smoke._

_Hills and valleys are the only way to make a truly beautiful landscape._

And on post-it notes, pressed to his blank canvases, or tucked inside a book set aside, or posted on the refrigerator, or wrapped around the handle of a paintbrush, written in flourishing hand:

_You are my favourite word sound sight taste feeling person._

_The coy mistress awaits us all, you know this well_   
_But if you're ever to take her hand_   
_Be sure to tell me so that I may send you off or be there_   
_To take her hand beside you_   
_But not until the dusk_   
_No not until owl-calling dusk_

_Let's pretend the clock doesn't exist today: the bed is our hourglass._

_You are a reminder_   
_Of the presence of jewels_   
_Within a cave_

He's not sure if Grantaire has realized what he's saying with every stroke of his pen or every shared breath. The idea that the man can't even bring himself to work it out makes him ache; he hurts for Grantaire, not himself.

Some days they create together, Jehan curled in the corner of Grantaire's studio, surrounded by paint tins and brushes and easels and splashes of paint, writing feverishly in his notebook as Grantaire caresses or slashes colour onto the canvas, creating a soul in front of Jehan's very eyes. On those days, they go to bed smiling, inspired, the curtains open. Other days Grantaire shuts himself up in his studio, and Jehan hears terrible aching noises from within as he hurls paint and too much emotion at the canvases. He knows when Grantaire will burn the painting he just finished. He knows when to go upstairs and open the door to the studio and pull Grantaire close, tucking the heavy head against his neck, and let him cry or rage and simply stand there and breathe. They go to bed silently, clinging, the curtains closed those nights.

No matter what, Grantaire wakes up to words on the whiteboard or a post-it or his skin.

And Grantaire buys him notebooks and flowers and colourful ribbons and things for craft projects. Grantaire pins him against the counter and kisses him and kisses him, fingers brushing gently against his jaw in the soft morning air. Jehan finds little doodles and sketches tucked away in his bag, or his poetry books, or under his pillow, or in his favourite mug. Sometimes they're of him, sometimes they're of the things he loves. Sometimes they're so rough as to be almost abstract, but Jehan understands them anyway.

They've never said it. They don't _need_ to, not really, at the back of their minds they know. They know from a touch or a glance or a word. Jehan knows. And he knows Grantaire does too, he just hasn't realized yet. But there are some moments when the words scream so loudly from within Jehan body it's a wonder they don't burst from his mouth and his veins and paint themselves across Grantaire's skin.

Jehan is beautiful. He's like an angel or nymph or some sort of flower-god in Grantaire's dried painstrokes. He's otherworldly in the most wonderful way, kindness and adoration in his eyes, joy and lightness in the motion of his body. Jehan wonders if this is how Grantaire sees him, this lovely beauty of ethereal wonder and gentleness. It's times like this, when Jehan sees Grantaire's art, sees all the emotion laid bare, that he wants to say it. Instead, he kisses Grantaire, nuzzles against him, writes him poetry and hopes their every touch sparks with the words.

"He has monsters under his skin," he explains to Feuilly one day. "But there's sunlight there, too. They both make him beautiful. And he is my favourite painting and my favourite story and my favourite song."

"He helps me save me," Grantaire whispers to Eponine in the dark. "When I feel like dying he somehow manages to show me that even with all the shit that's out there, there's still something gold in the world."

It's the first good day in a far too long series of bad ones. Grantaire is out of bed, showered, smiling a little, painting. They talk about nothing, rambling over pointless topics, and it feels wonderful. His eyes are shrouded by dark circles, but behind those curtains they are slowly brightening, and Jehan feels like he's watching the dawn. He is beautiful, his every joy and pain and everything in between.

They make dinner together, brushing shoulders and kissing as they pass each other. It's a gentle exploration, a re-acquaintance after days, weeks of deprivation, of Grantaire curled in bed or a corner, unable to talk or touch or sleep, staring and scratching, his body aching and skin sticky with the darkness. He glows again now, just a little, like the sun behind the jagged form of a mountain. Already the sunrise is beautiful. They spend the day together in the flat, talking, watching television, curled against each other, and Grantaire's face opens, his smile brightens.

Sleep finally comes easily to both of them that night, Grantaire's nose tucked up against Jehan's jaw, his arms snaked around his body. His breath tickles along Jehan's skin, and it's the most wonder reassurance of life.

When Jehan wakes up in the morning for work, Grantaire is still deeply asleep. He's rolled onto his stomach, both arms tucked under his pillow, exposing the long expanse of his back. Jehan watches him for a while, counting the ribs that make waves where the skin is stretched over them, watching the flickering lids and the quiet still movement of lips. Suddenly, he itches to say it, to whisper it into the sleep-deaf ear, to scream it out at the ceiling and the sky, he aches to say it through the darkness and the dawn and day. His fingers tingle with the need to say it, chest going to tight, breath crashing like the tide. Instead, he uncaps a pen and leans over. Before he leaves, he looks back through the doorway at his poem that stains Grantaire's skin. It's long, thirteen lines-- their favourite number-- curving from his left shoulder blade down across the lines of his ribs, written in his neatest handwriting. The words under his skin don't itch so much anymore, the tide has receded.

He comes home to Grantaire stretched out on the couch on his right side, reading Dick Francis, one hand resting lightly on the lip of a mug of tea. He bends over the back of the couch to kiss the top of Grantaire's head, and the man tilts his face up to kiss him properly.

"Did you paint today?"

"Sort of." Grantaire dog-ears the page and closes his book, standing up and tapping his fingers awkwardly against his thighs. "I--"

He tugs his t-shirt over his head and lets it drop to the floor. Jehan's heart ties itself into a little knot and flies up between his eyes as he traces his own words-- his own looping handwriting-- tattooed into Grantaire's skin, black words slightly red around the edges from the newness of the realization.

"I guess I didn't really know before. I thought-- I was afraid-- But--" He stumbles a little as Jehan surges forward and kisses him, pressing their bodies together against the back of the couch. Grantaire's hair is soft against his palms, dark waves caressing his fingers. His eyes are shining. "I get it now."

"Oh," Jehan breathes out, and shivers when Grantaire opens his mouth and takes in the word with an inward breath of his own. His skin itches, everything swirling inside him. He can say the words now. "God, I love you."

Grantaire's smile is like soaring, his voice is like ancient bells. There's a sigh, a breath of freedom and release and _oh it's true._ His hand is being pressed against his own words so permanent on skin, on both of their hearts. Grantaire's words are sunlight. "I love you."

The sea is rushing inside them both, crashing against their lips, salt spray against their tongues, slipping from the bay of Jehan's eyes. The words are whispers of foam that skim their edges, the echoing voice of the song that swims in the depths within. Jehan doesn't think he's ever loved the ocean more.


End file.
